Saturday, December 28, 2013

The fascinating Villa Riviera in Long Beach California.
I have painted this building a couple times already and always had plans to get back to it. I still don't have clear in my head what exactly I want to do with it or how to portray it. Doing these smaller studies will help me see and decide before doing a larger version.263

Monday, December 23, 2013

In my recent seascape studies here is an oil painting. The dark rock against all the white boulders made for a good study in the colors of white on a bright sunny day. I pushed the saturation quite a bit on this one.

If one like this makes it to a larger more finished version I may likely pull back a bit on the saturation. Part of experimenting is pushing things to really find out what can be done. This allowed me to focus on the color cast of each area.262

*I photographed this painting while wet so most of the white specks are glare highlights. When dry I will rephotograph.
*12/28/13 I've uploaded this more accurate pic. Gone are the white highlight specks. Any left are the white of the board showing.

Friday, December 20, 2013

The Huntington Beach Power Plant may be getting torn down soon so I present it from its backside and in the background, the marine layer moving in to engulf it, a device I have used before to indicate an eventual disappearance from the landscape. We get so used to some landmarks around us they become a fixture in our lives and we will notice them more when they are gone one day.261

*The color of this pic is a little off, a bit too pink, but when it leaves my photo editing app it looks right.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Here is another exploratory seascape. I am doing these in preparation for larger works.
As I experiment with light, atmosphere, seasons, palette, design, moving the horizon up and down etc, I will begin to hone in on one or more series within the larger seascape motif.

This one and the previous "Seascape Tide Pools" both are fair weather versions.260

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

One of my goals for 2014 is to do more seascapes. I am beginning to do these smaller watercolors to search out what direction I will take with them. In this painting, at low tide, the tide pools remain relatively calm even when there are waves.
I am sure I will do others of these tide pools since the rocky pools offer some great patterns.259

Monday, December 16, 2013

This is a small close-up study of a train bridge over the Los Angeles River. I love the submarine-like shape of its foundation.

I will at some point paint one or more larger versions of this bridge.
Doing studies helps familiarize myself with the complicated structure of this bridge which crosses the river at an angle instead of at 90 degrees. That means there are more angles to work out the perspective of, in fact hardly any 90 degree angles at all.258

Friday, December 13, 2013

This is what was left of the Long Beach California Press Telegram, a pile of rubble.
Shoveled into a nice neat pile is the remains of peoples former lives. The paper itself, as it once was, is the story now.

Like many of my industrial subjects the fascination here is all the various shapes.
Whether it is a pile of debris or a hillside in nature does not always matter to an artist. Instead we focus on its artistic values. So this is more of a study for the series. When I figure out what else to say I will use this for another painting.257

Thursday, December 12, 2013

This is another in Anders Zorn palette of ivory black, white, yellow ochre and vermillion.
This I did from the photo on the DPW Challenge. I normally don't use someone else's photo but I did like the old abandoned house and they shot the pic from a good angle.

I am finding out by these two that the Zorn palette does not really translate well into watercolor (see last post). For one the ivory black does not give a very good cool blueish gray when mixed with white. I very rarely use tube black in watercolor or oil, preferring to use a chromatic black mixed from ultramarine or cobalt blue and burnt sienna.
Also white mixed into watercolor acts very different than white mixed into oil.256

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Here is a small watercolor seascape done in Anders Zorn limited palette of ivory black, white, yellow ochre, and vermillion.

The challenge of course was no blue for sky and water. No matter though. I used the white with black to get a cool gray for the distant clouds, black with yellow ochre to get a green gray for the water and generally saved mixes of vermillion and yellow ochre for the rocks. There were a few mixes of three colors but that was for subtly in keys areas, primarily to help turn form.255
*If you saw this previously the color was too warm. I've uploaded a more color accurate pic. 12/12/13

Monday, December 9, 2013

Aaah, the marine layer, coastal fog, it is what makes for dramatic light and color.
It is near the perimeter of coastal fog that the deep rich colors live, before they die under its gray canopy. The landscape begins to fall into shadow but there is still enough sunlight to rouse color saturation.254

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About My Blog

Thank you for visiting my blog. Before I started this I very carefully considered the purpose and intent of a blog. Unlike a website it gets updated more frequently, contains more text, and may contain other info or updates not seen on a website.

As others have done, I decided it would be more like a book or journal. Here is the place for my insights on art, my work, and specific images. Something that I miss on some blogs. I'm always very interested in how other artists think, how they arrived at their images, their own uniqueness... different than my own.

When I want to just see images I visit their website, when I want to know more, I visit their blog. I see no reason to have both the same.

With that in mind I designed my blog to be as simple as possible so as not to detract from the art or writing. And although it will be constantly evolving I will try not lose sight of that.

Using the book model, I choose a blog title (book title) and use post titles (chapter titles) different than the titles of the images. Why be redundant? That info is available directly under the image.

Sometimes image titles in series are long or all have similar names, making blog archive searches for a specific image harder to remember and find. So a couple of words taken from or relating to the writing for that post title will make it easier to remember for some, since the writing and image are tied to each other as well as serve as an alternate title, which I don't mind.

About My Work

My artwork generally falls into one of five genre's; Industrial, Seascape, Cityscape, Landscape and Figure. These five genre's very often are a vehicle for representing some other idea, impression or statement. Which means the image may be a cityscape for example, but beneath the surface lies something more. I hope you take the time to examine my work on this basis... looking for the real content... because I know for me, that is where the real joy begins.